Hattie Brown of Hattiesburg, left, Christine Brice of Gulfport, and Clarence Magee of Hattiesburg, gather Saturday on the National Mall for the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington.

Written by

Deborah Barfield Berry
Gannett Washington Bureau

Clarence and Carrie Magee can still remember having to pay poll taxes and pass literacy tests while registering to vote in Hattiesburg in the 1950s and 1960s.

The black college-educated couple paid the $2 tax and passed the quiz on Mississippi's constitution. But election officials repeatedly found reasons to keep them off the voting rolls.

Clarence, 81, and Carrie, 84, brought those memories of the segregated South with them to Washington on Saturday, joining thousands of other people at the Lincoln Memorial to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington. ...